Tonight

Former Wisconsin football player Jake Wood treats a patient during relief efforts for earthquake victims in Haiti. Wood, a former Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, has assembled "Team Rubicon" to assist in aiding individuals injured in the Jan. 12 earthquake, and was on the ground in Haiti less than a week after the disaster struck.

Wood's effort in Haiti expands as team grows

Former Wisconsin football player Jake Wood treats a patient during relief efforts for earthquake victims in Haiti. Wood, a former Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, has assembled "Team Rubicon" to assist in aiding individuals injured in the Jan. 12 earthquake, and was on the ground in Haiti less than a week after the disaster struck.
William McNulty/Team Rubicon

As he watched the chaotic scenes from Haiti unfold on
television, Jake Wood worried that large-scale relief efforts
couldn't move quickly enough to reach many of the earthquake
victims in time.

And Wood knew his leadership and survival skills put him in a
unique position to help; Wood, 26, was a reserve offensive lineman
for the University of Wisconsin before joining the Marines, where
he served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So Wood posted an Internet message to his friends: I'm going to
Haiti. Who's in?

A few people volunteered right away -- including Jeff Lang, a
former Badgers teammate who now works as a firefighter in
Milwaukee. Wood then recruited a few doctors and EMTs to the team
during his flight to the Dominican Republic.

Today, Wood and his hastily assembled "Team Rubicon" are on the
rural outskirts of Port-au-Prince, trying to bring emergency
medical care to victims who are running out of time.

"They're moving out into the 'boonies,' faster than other people
can," said Wood's father, Jeff, in a telephone interview with The
Associated Press from his home in Bettendorf, Iowa. "They say when
the Red Cross and others catch up with them, it's time to move
on."

Although communication is sporadic at best -- team members use
Internet-enabled mobile phones charged by solar panels -- Wood has
talked to his son a few times since he left for Haiti. Jake Wood
told his father about nightmarish scenes of untreated victims who
have been waiting on help for days while supplies pile up at the
airport.

"In a week, everybody will be taken care of," Jeff Wood said.
"That'll be too late for a lot of people."

Jeff Wood says Team Rubicon has raised approximately $70,000 in
donations, mostly through Internet social media networks, his son's
blog -- blog.teamrubiconhaiti.org -- and a handful of mentions in
the mainstream media.

"My first reaction was, 'Jake, you're not in the Marines any
more, but you have a special set of skills. You would be ashamed of
yourself if you didn't try to use them to help people,"' Jake Wood
told Madison.com/sports in an interview before
he left for Haiti.

Gary Cagle, a volunteer who is organizing a group of additional
workers to join the team in Haiti, estimates that they have
acquired at least $100,000 worth of donated medical equipment and
hope to have a total of 50 people on the ground in Haiti.

"Not bad for an organization Jake started only about a week ago,
huh?," Cagle said in an e-mail.

In a recent phone conversation, Jake told his father that the
team had saved 20 lives that day. On the blog, a team member posted
a photo of the team's makeshift maternity ward.

But such triumphs are temporary breaks from an overwhelming
backdrop of tragedy.

"It's horrible," Jeff Wood said. "It's absolutely horrible.
(Jake) said in combat, he's used to seeing wounds that are fresh.
Here, he's seeing wounds that are six days old."

In a blog post Tuesday night, Jake Wood described one of the
team's doctors trying, unsuccessfully, to save a woman whose pelvic
bone was protruding through her skin.

"Frustrated, he finally back off and with sadness told her, 'I'm
sorry, I can't do it,"' Jake Wood wrote. "She simply, weakly,
smiled and nodded. At least he cared enough to try."

Jeff Wood knows the experience has been difficult on his
son.

"He's getting weary," Jeff Wood said. "I think he feels like
he's emptying the ocean with a teacup sometimes. I don't know how
you compare it with seeing your buddy get his limbs blown off. But
he's a compassionate person."

And not someone who looks for the easy way out.

As a former Big Ten athlete, the Marines encouraged Wood to go
to officer school; he turned it down.

"He said, 'I'm not going to sit in a command post and direct
people. If I'm going to ask people to go through a door, I want to
go through it, too,"' Jeff Wood said.

Jake went on to become a Marine scout sniper, trained to move in
the shadows and hunt down enemy targets with precision. Given his
survival skills, Jeff says he isn't worried about his son's safety
in Haiti; at least, he jokes, Jake is in the Western
Hemisphere.

Jake Wood, a former Badgers lineman who joined the Marines after graduating from UW, assembled his own team and left Saturday for Port-au-Prince to help the victims of Tuesday's devastating earthquake.